Rig Riddles: Whose Truck? by Toni Buzzeo

WHEN SOMEONE HURTS
LIGHTS FLASH AND GLOW.

WHOSE TRUCK IS THIS?
DO YOU KNOW?

Noted author Toni Buzzeo's Whose Truck? (Whose Tools?) (Abrams Appleseed Books, 2015) has all the right stuff for young truck fanciers, whose numbers are legion! Buzzeo builds into this picture book staple an engaging design which works as a basic identification book for toddlers and a vocabulary-building nonfiction entry for older readers.

Each of the six featured service vehicles has a literal three-fold exposition. The verso (left-hand) page features a rhyming riddle with clues to the identify of each truck, while the recto (right-hand) page shows artist Jim Datz' realistic but stylized drawing of each one on the job. Then the eye-catching gatefold opens to show the workers associated with the vehicle, each performing his or her particular role with the appropriate equipment or tool. The electric utility truck gatefold shows the workers repairing fallen power lines with the help of their aerial bucket and boom, and the ever-popular firetruck pages show the hydrant intake hose, the deluge gun, and the fire fighters with their ladders and axes on the job. EMT technicians block traffic, examine patients, and load them into their first-response facility for the trip to the ER.

Also featured are highway maintenance vehicles--scapers, asphalt trucks, concrete spreaders, and all; the construction vehicles include all the usual heavy-duty equipment--cranes and levelers, and even the broadcast trucks and their news hounds show off their antennas, cameras, and cable teams.

Even toy trucks are given their due, in this outstanding salute to those community services and equipment that kids love to watch on the job. Male and female workers of both genders and various ethnic groups are featured by illustrator Datz plying their trades with zest, making this book one that even young readers will enjoy perusing closely all on their own. "A must for toddlers and preschoolers," says Kirkus in its starred review.

New York Style: Little Humans by Brandon Stanton

LITTLE HUMANS CAN DO BIG THINGS.

SURE, SOMETIMES THEY FALL.

BUT THEY GET RIGHT BACK UP.

A variety of young humans of New York, preschoolers all, show off their style. Their outfits are colorful, and so are their surroundings, in the charming photos by Brandon Stanton in his companion book to his best-selling photo-essay, Humans of New York. Like its adult version, Stanton's street photography captures the many personalities, looks, and activities of big-city tots, sometimes falling off bikes and sometimes showing how tough they can be, even if they sometimes cry.

Toddlers dressed as Batman, toeing up in tutus, toting guitars, and sporting rock star facepaint to strut their stuff vie with others hammering with Dad, playing ball, hugging Mom, or sledding in the snow, in activities that all small children share. For rural or suburban kids, Brandon Stanton's spinoff for preschoolers, Little Humans (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014) provides a taste of big city living and playing, dressing up, and showing off what kids can do.

"I'M NOT LITTLE!

I'M BIG!"

"This vivid collection underscores both the diversity and commonality among children, and may well inspire readers to imagine the lives of and stories behind each child," says Publishers Weekly.

Up And At Ya!: Silly Ghosts: A Haunted Pop-up Book by Janet Lawler

SILLY GHOSTS POP UP OUT OF THE NIGHT.

WHATEVER ARE THEY SEARCHING FOR?

Well, what all ghosts want on Halloween night! Midnight feasts, furry beasts to spook, a candle-lit party with lots of creepy games, and most of all, special kids to join them in Halloween treats and tricks.

And that's what these outrageous ghosts will get whenever any kid opens this book and activates the large and clever double-page pop-up spreads that designers Janet Lawler, Ana Chambers, and Yevgeniya Yeretskaya have dreamed up in their Silly Ghosts a Haunted Pop-up Book (Jumping Jack Press, 2011). There's also pull-tab fun which the creators have engineered into this charming little book., as the ghosts "blow" out the flickering candles on a candelabra, leaving wispy smoke trails behind, or a mischievous dog who turns over a treat bag to spill its candy all over the floor. There is also delightfully frightful wordplay in the funny, punny tombstones which abound in the illustrations, with such inscriptions as Rustin Peace, Moe R. Bid, Will B. Back, and I. M. Dead throughout.

More fun than a barrel of monkeys, this Halloween pop-up fills the trick-or-treat bag for holiday fun.